Russia to find out fate for Winter Olympics

Olympic chiefs gather in Lausanne today to decide what punishment Russia should get for its endemic doping, with a ban from February’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang looking likely.

This sanction – once dismissed by International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach as a “nuclear option” with too much “collateral damage” – would mean only carefully-vetted Russians could compete in South Korea, under the Olympic flag, in neutral colours.

For many, this is what should have happened before Rio 2016, when the IOC ruled against such a “collective” punishment, opting instead to leave it up to each sport.

That resulted in the world’s biggest country sending an almost full-strength team to Brazil, winning 56 medals, with only track and field’s federation the IAAF taking a hard line and limiting them to one neutral athlete.

The International Paralympic Committee followed the IAAF’s lead and banned the entire team, but any possibility of the IOC ever taking such a stance seemed unlikely as the circus moved on to Pyeongchang, particularly given Russia’s status in winter sports as a broadcaster, competitor, host and sponsor.

That status remains significant – and could still save Russia from an unprecedented Olympic ban for doping – but opinion against its cheating, most notably at the last Winter Games in Sochi, has hardened.

Russia’s response has been consistent from the beginning: there was no state-sponsored doping, any wrongdoing was directed by rogue actors, and its record is no worse than any other nation’s.

With Russian officials threatening to boycott Pyeongchang if its athletes were forced to compete as neutrals, there were rumours at last week’s draw for the 2018 World Cup in Moscow that the nation may preemptively pull out to save face.

That seems unlikely now, and Russian president Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS news agency there would be no Cold War-style boycott, although Russia “remains unwilling to accept many decisions concerning our athletes that Wada has made”.